


I See Fire

by Azile_Teacup



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1871373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azile_Teacup/pseuds/Azile_Teacup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur dreams of dragons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I See Fire

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: cutting to make a tattoo

Arthur dreams about fire. The hearth in his room is built too high for the summer heat, the heavy curtains are drawn, the room is dark except the reflection of the red and orange, leaping and scorching the walls. When he finally sleeps he's restless. And he dreams about fire.

He knows he's asleep and it's almost like the scene is on the backs of his eyes, there's a dragon. Or, at first it's not a dragon. There's movement and colour and scale and a snatch of memory, of Camelot burning. There are wings and blue-grey, grey-blue, blue-grey of a belly and the rush of wind and swoop as the beast takes off and a whining roar and then flames. Embers and smoke and great gouts of fire enveloping Arthur and melting his crown into his forehead. 

He's not sure if he's asleep, now. He stands at the window in his nightclothes, the wind cold even though it's summer. The moon's out but it's pale light is not comforting. It's too sharp, too clean. It glosses over the ground and shapes trees into men and shadows into lakes and he can't see what's moving down there, but something is. The boughs of the tree against his wall, the soldiers in his castle keep. But what else? What is down there?

Out there somewhere Merlin's sleeping. Arthur knows this, whether he himself is awake or sleeping Merlin's somewhere. Even in his dreams Merlin's always close at his back, always tripping after him.

"What are you doing up, my Lord?"

Arthur turns to his lover and smiles. He's thin but the muscles under his skin are clear. He's wearing britches and little else, his neckerchief tied about his wrist for once. Arthur watches him move closer, clearing up a little as he comes. Picking up the clothes and bits of bread Arthur tossed aside. He turns back to the window before Merlin joins him.

"There's something out there."

"What is it?"

He can feel Merlin's shoulder there, can feel where his neck joins his body, can tell that his eyes are fixed on Arthur instead of whatever is out there. 

"A dragon."

As Arthur names it the beast uncurls from where it was resting and rises, wings beating. There's no fire this time, just the grey belly and sharp scales, the moonlight glinting off teeth and eye-white and claws. Arthur knows the feel of those claws, knows the steel of them. He absently rubs his shoulder, watching the tail flick around the towers of his castle. 

"I can call her."

"No."

They watch, side by side, as Aithusa flies a lazy loop over the castle. The moon catches her and, as they watch, she changes. The colour of her scales changes, flickering in the silver light from blue-grey to red to crimson and to a deep, rusty orange. The claws tighten and thin out and the body bulks up, turning a barrel roll and suddenly darting at the window where they stand, jaws widening and widening and then the beast is breathing, spitting fire and heat. 

Arthur steps, stumbles, falls. He pinwheels and cries out, trying to grab for Merlin where he's ringed in fire. He can't reach and he's falling, falling, he can feel his stomach drop. 

"Uh!"

He sits up, clasping his chest. The fire's burning hot and orange, the curtains closed, the room dark and hot and burning him up. Merlin mumbles something and sits up beside him, rubbing his eyes.

"hmm? 's'it?"

"Nothing. A dream. Aithusa."

"Hmm?"

"Only she wasn't."

The curtains aren't entirely shut, after all. There's a crack and through it the moon is leaking, cold and silver, a sliver. Arthur watches it for bright eyes, for teeth and claws.

"Tell me."

Merlin shifts and Arthur hears him moving, stilling at Arthur's back, hands running over the expanse of naked skin. Arthur frowns and looks around for his nightdress, finding it discarded by the window. He scratches his hot skin and breathes out heavily.

"Red. But, only in between."

"Between?"

"She was Aithusa, then she was gliding in the moon and red, crimson, rusty."

"Hmm."

Arthur feels the hum in his skin, Merlin's breath hot on his shoulder. He shivers. Merlin's hands trace a pattern over his shoulders, over and over.

"She had a tail. Long, like Kilgarah."

Merlin traces it out, over Arthur's hip, curling into the cradle of his pelvis in front. Arthur shuts his eyes. 

"Fire. She was breathing, so hot. So hot. Bright, bright. White fire."

Merlin breathes in sharper and Arthur feels it, hot and bright, over his left shoulder. 

"Arthur, can I...?"

"Yes. Yes."

"I can feel her, under your skin."

"I know. I know. Scales, scales. Dark at the edges. Like bleeding. Claws. Long, long claws, twisted and dark. Metal. Metal..."

Merlin's hands are replaced by something. It's too hot to feel properly, so the first scratch barely irritates his skin. 

"Eyes were narrow, not like Kilgarah's or Aithusa's. Thinner, yellow, gold. Gold. Silver along the wings, though. Like light, light woven into the making of her. So bright, bright light."

This time he can feel it not as a prick or discomfort, can feel it traced onto his skin and dug in, dug out. Merlin flicks sharp and cutting and digging, digging for Arthur's dragon. 

"What's her name, Arthur?"

"Name? Name? Don't know. I didn't hear. She was... her tail, her tail Merlin."

Arthur watches as Merlin's hand runs, self assured, over the line he traced for the tail. Cutting, colouring, gouging it out. Arthur watches the tail flick from Merlin's fingers, rising out of his skin. Rusty red and flushed with his own blood, shaded by the thin cut lines in his skin, silver flickering and then gone and then flickering and then gone. 

"Her wings?"

"Translucent. Light. Red at the top, fading outwards, flecking. Big, big, strong."

He cries out as the knife cuts deeper, deeper into his spine, cutting him. He feels the slow thick trickle of blood from Merlin's hands. From the dragon. 

"Am I awake?"

"Tell me more, tell me her name."

Merlin's hands cut deeper and deeper, like Arthur's Excalibur lying discarded with his armour. Arthur cries out again as Merlin takes his skin, leaving space for the wings. He squeezes his eyes shut, wetting his face with tears. 

"Am I awake?"

"What was she called?"

"Tân! Tânwen!"

"White fire? Red dragon, white fire."

Arthur gasps and tries to take a deep breath, but he's dizzy with the thick air and heat and blood. 

"I'm bleeding."

"Yes. The red dragon."

The dragon he can feel under his skin, Arthur thinks, and then the wind is creeping in through the crack and he's lying down and then he's back at the window, watching the red dragon take off. He shuts his eyes and sees a king on a hill with his Merlin, sees the red dragon and a white dragon, sees Mordred and then there are flames, flames burning him and engulfing him.

He wakes cool. The fever they've been burning out of him is gone and the fire's banked, the curtains thrown open to the sun. Merlin's sat at the table eating breakfast in his court clothes, reading silently. He looks up when Arthur opens his eyes and smiles, waving a hand to peel the sweat-stuck blankets off Arthur. 

"Good morning. Did you sleep well, finally?"

"Finally?"

His voice is a croak. It doesn't sound like him at all.

"Mm. You were tossing and turning. Shouting about a red dragon and then a white dragon, too."

"You cut me."

Merlin raises an eyebrow, but doesn't otherwise protest. Arthur scrambles out of the bed and pads naked to the mirror. He presses a hand to his hip where he remembers the tail, then looks. 

It's there. Silver flecked, long, twisting. Rust red and blood red staining his skin. He turns side on and sees the rest of it appear, part of his skin, picked out in colour and blood and dark, black stains for the claws and wing tips. 

"My dragon."

Merlin waves a hand and Arthur can see his back in the mirror, now. The dragon's nostrils rest on his shoulder, a faint flicker of red and orange now catching the light, bright gold eyes staring insolently into his own. His breath catches and he reaches out to touch, startled by the cool of the glass. 

"Tânwen, you said."

"Tânwen."

"Y ddraig coch. The red dragon. She battled the white, under Vortigern's castle. You know the story."

Arthur nods. It's an old bed time favourite of his.

"I saw you. With him, with Vortigern. On the hill."

Merlin smiles and goes back to reading. Arthur looks back to the dragon carved under his skin, feeling his side and back for scales and feeling them, faint but there, dents in his skin that reach right down to his bones. 

"She was a sign that you were to be born, Arthur. If you dreamt her, what does it mean?"

"You cut a great bloody big dragon into my back, you idiot! What are my knight going to think?"

"That their court sorcerer is doing nasty, sexy things to their king. Nothing they don't already gossip about."

"Merlin!"

Merlin just smiles and pushes back his chair, folding his napkin. 

"I have court, my lord. You need to rest."

Arthur obediently pads back to bed, planning his escape once Merlin's gone.

"Don't even think about it, sire."

Merlin's eyes flash, his wrist flicks and the mirror creaks. Warning Arthur that Merlin will be watching. He scowls, but Merlin just smiles at him again and leaves in a swish of cloak. Trying to be impressive. His swishy clothes and hips and swaggering and arrogant beauty doesn't impress Arthur, though. Not a bit. 

Arthur turns onto his side and feels the dragon shift under his skin, the tail flicking, the fire breathing in and out a ghost of Merlin's from last night. Arthur wonders, as he drifts off to sleep, what her coming might mean. And what was Mordred doing up there on that hill?


End file.
